Inspiration is all around

I wish that I was posting something amazing about my physical health, but if I am being honest, teaching is absolutely kicking my butt. One of my best friends, who is also a teacher, said that teaching is like performing for 7 hours a day. It absolutely is. Every day leaves me just exhausted. It is an awesome experience, but generally speaking, when the day is over, I feel too tired to do much of anything, so my work out routine that I thought would fix itself, has just become more erratic. I have tried to do little things to help, such as parking far away from my classroom so I have to walk further, and I force myself to walk around campus to talk to people instead of always just e-mailing them, but it is certainly not the work out routine I desire. What it comes down to is defeating the exhaustion. I am getting enough sleep, and I am still eating healthy (although, I am not eating regularly enough), so I have not slipped back into these awful habits, but, at the moment, I am just sort of treading water. I am stuck on a total of 72 pounds lost in the last 17 months. Today I had planned to go to my gym and talk to a personal trainer about possibly getting personal training sessions to help me get out of this funk, but I am getting beat by an awful cold, and I stepped on something sharp last night that punctured my skin and my foot is in immense pain. I will try again later this week.

What I do want to talk about is all of this inspiration around me. Let me start with my students. Last weekend I read 130 essays about goals. My students had to pick four categories of their lives and write an essay about the goals they set for themselves in those areas. It is a wonderful assignment for them and for me because it gets them thinking about their lives and it allows me to see what they value. Many of them are working on their own physical health. Some are doing it for aesthetic reasons (teenagers lust after six packs), but are doing specifically to help them in their sports (one junior already has been accepted to a college with a swimming scholarship), and others are doing just to feel better about themselves. I have already mentioned that I told them all about my journey and many of them mentioned it in their essays. Multiple people included little asides rooting for me and encouraging me. Once football season is over the gym on campus is open 4 days a week after school, and many of my students want to get me in the gym and teach me the routines the coaches have set up for them. I think I am going to take them up on it, if only so they can see that I am actually trying. I even have a student to chastises me every day that I forget to bring my lunch, because they know that I am trying to eat better. One of the many beautiful things about teenagers is their willingness to point out when their teachers are not holding up their promises. It keeps me motivated and keeps me on my toes. I know I am going to get asked if I brought my lunch and I know the disapproving glances I will get if I forget.

I get to come home every day to a wonderful woman, this is not news to anyone, however, over the last two months, Martina has started to get incredibly serious about her own health and fitness. In July she did an insane squat challenge and stuck with it all through the month. She also started stocking our fridge with only healthy things. We have moved from regular milk to almond milk, and we snack on bananas and apples now. She makes wraps instead of sandwiches, and because of her, we are incorporating vegetables into all of our home cooked meals. All of that is awesome and impressive, but the thing that blows me away every single day is her dedication to the Insanity Workout. Every night when I get home from work, she is either in the middle of her work out or just getting ready to start it and every day she pushes herself to finish the most insane work outs. It is the most inspiring thing ever. When we get a bigger place next year, one of my goals is to be able to do Insanity with her. Watching her push through all of the pain and the difficult speeds of Insanity is awesome, but that is not even where it ends. Last weekend she participated in her first 5K, and even though she had not really done any running in the last few months, she completed the 5K jogging the entire time. I was so proud of her. I AM so proud of her.

It is a wonderful thing to enjoy coming home at night, and knowing that someone is there who inspires you to be your best on a daily basis. I luck out because I spend my day with roughly 200 students who inspire me in a variety of ways, and then I come home to a girl who also inspires me. To say that life is good would be an understatement. So, now is the time to take all of this beautiful inspiration around me and put it to use. it is time for me to get my act in gear and get back to the business of getting healthy. Thanks for all of the support dear readers. Keep doing big things!